Secret Wonders of the World: A Guest Post by Anita Isalska

Explore the world in a new way...if you're up for it. Ancient caves, ghost towns and islands where cats outnumber humans: these are just a few of the marvels that are explored in this guide to quirky, unexpected places around the globe. Read on for an exclusive essay from Anita Isalska on Lonely Planet's Secret Wonders of the World. 

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I’ve been wonderstruck more times than I can count. It’s a feeling that I keep seeking out – almost like an addiction.

Luckily, you can build a whole career chasing wonders. As a freelance travel writer and editor, I’ve had the chance to visit hundreds of fascinating places and tell the world about them. That’s how I ended up working on Lonely Planet’s new book, Secret Wonders of the World.

Secret Wonders of the World is a travel book, but perhaps not the kind you’re used to: it’s a compendium of unique, compelling, and downright astonishing sights, all around the world. The book doesn’t just showcase iconic and famous places, it shines a light on some of the planet’s best-kept secrets. Architectural follies, hidden shrines, geological marvels that shatter your sense of scale… its pages are filled with the weird and wonderful.

Take Lake Natron in Tanzania, for example. This incredibly salty lake is blood-red, thanks to dissolved minerals and swarms of cyanobacteria, and the water temperature exceeds 140°F (60°C). Despite being hazardous to most life forms, the lake is a breeding ground for flamingos and attracts millions of the elegant pink birds.

Then there’s the Palais Idéal in France. With its spires, turrets and gargoyles, this temple-esque building is already impressive, but what’s even more amazing is how it was created. A postal worker turned artist built this fairytale palace singlehandedly, over a period of 33 years, mostly from pebbles he collected along his postal route.

Clearly, wonders come in all shapes and sizes – so how do you decide which ones to include in a book? That was my challenge as the editor of Secret Wonders.

I started by drawing on my own experiences. In my time as a travel journalist, I’ve written about Icelandic devil myths, Bulgarian battlegrounds and the impact of climate change on California’s frogs. When I text friends that I’ve been interviewing coffin artists, or spent my day stalking Greenlandic muskoxen, it sounds more like a fever dream than a day job.

As I dug into researching the book, the best part was interviewing some of the people who live and work in these extraordinary places. I asked a Danish artist about the personalities of his troll sculptures. I spoke with Ukrainian Canadians about a time capsule they’ve created in Alberta. With every conversation, I could feel my own world getting bigger.

But it was easy to get distracted. I felt like a magpie, helplessly drawn to the next delightful or strange thing. Fortunately, I had a team of experts to keep me on track.

You might know Lonely Planet as a travel company. To me, it’s really a collective of incurably curious travel nerds. Every single member of the team is a wonder-hunter, eager to divulge

their favorite places (especially the unsung, obscure ones). They were happy to debate the relative merits of rainbow-striped trees and hellish theme parks so I could finish my plan for the book.

Poring over wondrous places made me philosophical. There really is a story behind every crooked tree and oddly shaped mountain, therein revealing something about what it means to be a human on this fragile and mysterious planet.

Nothing makes me feel more alive than being surprised by the world. I hope people who read the book feel that same sense of awe.